Tag Archives: Nashville

I’ve decided I’m a bit of a Ketchup bottle lately and have been filled so full that things just aren’t coming out to share in a flowing motion.

Since my last post in which our friends were out to visit in February, the very next day, one of my cousins arrived for a five day visit. His mom (my aunt) had recently passed, so it was good to be together and share time.

We hiked,

and even made it to East Denver to see another cousin of ours for an afternoon of fun, food and stories.

Just a few days after Jer left, I left for Nashville. Our friend Patty from Chattanooga had been in Vanderbilt Hospital intensive care since December with complete heart failure, so I had booked a trip out to spend some time and hopefully provide some cheer. It was a quick 4 day trip, but felt great to see her (just released from ICU before I arrived) and also stay with Jas and Ro and hear of their recent adventures.

The next weekend, it was beautiful and Ted surprised me by agreeing to go for an impromptu hike in a park we had not been to before.

Make sure we take you to Staunton State Park when you come out sometime. It truly is a gorgeous place to hike.

That same weekend, some of our friends kids had an gig playing in a “school of rock” kind of band. It was really great to see them excelling and enjoying themselves on stage in a real venue.

The next weekend, I had a Mom’s night on Friday and then Ted and I headed to the mountains for a few days of skiing with our friends from North Carolina and Missouri and staying at the “Joe Cabin” (a whole nother story that goes back too many years to count)

The view from the deck of the cabin along the Colorado River.

The following weekend, I had been invited to meet my cousin in South Dakota and climb Harney Peak. We met at my friend Sally’s house (I think this is my first great friend that share’s my name), and left pre-dawn the next morning and climbed the peak along with the sun. At 7242 feet, it boasts as being the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains and west of the Pyrenees Mountains of Europe.

Atop the peak is the Fire lookout station and a 360 degree view. Well worth the effort.

Which brings us to last weekend – consisting of having friends – whom we haven’t gotten to see at all this winter – over on Friday, new neighbors over for a meet and greet on Saturday and of course, there was the Dinner and Dead group on Sunday.

Mix into those weeks, other Dinner and Dead Sunday’s, some nights out with the kids, and there hasn’t been much free spare time for writing.

I’m really only managing this today because it is rainy (much needed) and I am at the computer at lunch instead of on a walk in the greenbelt space near the office.

There are of course, lots of stories within all of the excursions, but that’s where the bottled up sensation takes over. Choosing and relaying seem to be oh so much harder if I don’t do it at the time.

Heck, I still have way too many stories from my time off last summer that I haven’t relayed yet. (but I do really want to get some of those out).

Yesterday, we hugged our friends who had hosted us so very well goodbye and we headed to Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga. I was still in the company of the bride and groom and his parents.

We got to experience the worlds steepest incline railway

. At 72.7 degrees of incline at the most vertical section, it is a dramatic ride.

We had chosen to park at the base and take the rail up.

Once at the top we walked over to the Signal Point Park and meandered our way around the Point learning of the battles and importance of the location.

The area was beautiful and while the placards we would read portrayed the history of the spot, it was the stories that were recounted while we traped around that I loved.

As this was my first weekend of spending time with the groom’s folks, I especially enjoyed the casual absorption of family information and bits of stories that are garnered from the staccato pace of touring that kind of spot.

A quick ride back down the mountain and we were back into our cars for the drive back to Nashville.

Two car had been driven down to accommodate all the luggage and extra little things for the wedding the day prior. It was the groom and his parents in one and me riding with the bride.

TWo hours sped by in our vehicle as we chatted and laughed our way back.

AT dinner, I had some great food, but it was the narrative of the history of my newly acquired friends that fed my soul.

After dinner, we headed to one of the Honky Tonk bars that Nashville is famed for.

The band was the Western Swingers. The fiddler is 87 years young and played and sang without ever looking like he needed a rest or break at all. Maybe I’ll have that kind of energy when I grow up.

Saturday, Jas and I went down to Chattanooga to visit the folks we would have seen had we been going to support my cousin in his quest.

I had wanted to see a couple that I had liked so well from my first Sun Dance experience that we did not get to see at this past year’s. It is the son of the Medicine man and his wife that had spent many hours with me during that first Sun Dance and they live in the same area we were going to.

We also wanted to visit and were expecting to stay with the folks who were to have hosted the prayerful time for my cousin.

Sometimes thing then happen to change your plans. In Native American speak, I mooned out. (Got my menstrual cycle.) There was another person that had scheduled to come in for his prayers when my cousin cancelled, so I could no longer stay at the house of the destination. Mooning women cannot be around as they carry their own power during that cycle and it can interfere.

This would also mean that I would not get to sweat in the sweat lodge at either place – both sets of folks we wanted to visit have their own lodges.

So not being sure if we would get to see the folks at the original destination at all, we phoned the others and were graciously invited over there to stay.

It was great. We sat around and just shared stories, had a wonderful meal, she played her guitar and sang wonderfully for us and we laughed and laughed.

Being with them was so welcoming that it was like being enveloped in a hug the entire time we were there. Pretty awesome.

The area in Chattanooga is just full of hundreds of different types of deciduous trees that just create this gorgeous canopy of jungle type atmosphere. I got up in the morning and tried to find any of the seemingly hundreds of birds that were welcoming the day as I awoke and due to the height, breadth and density of the foliage, I could not see any of them.

After sharing another meal, we headed off to see the other group as it was relayed that if I kept to the house, we could come and visit. Again, we were welcomed with much love and were able to spend a few hours catching up on everyone’s lives before heading back to Nashville.

It was a great weekend for me and of course it also included the “road trip” talk-a-thon that seems to prevail.

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I’ve arrived in Nashville and have been welcomed like family. I’ve been on two awesome hikes over the past two days. The woods and the trails are just gorgeous.

We saw a butterfly that was missing a small section of its wing and we stopped to photograph it. It then proceeded to lead us on our walk for several minutes. It would fly ahead for fifteen or twenty feet and then land and wait and when we would catch up, it would again take flight and stop for us once more.

So many times it kept this routine that we felt we had a third hiker with us for a time. More magic was in store for us…we saw two owls! We even were able to observe them hunting. It was awesome.

You have to look harder for the next one.

We’ve driven around this cozy feeling city several times and through some truly gorgeous neighborhoods, never taking the same way twice so that I can see as much as possible.

I have visited the Parthenon – the life size replica of the original and it is beautiful as well.

While at the Parthenon, we stopped to watch some guys play a version of soccer where they were these inflatable bubbles around themselves. Pretty hilarious.

And just to keep my luck going on my vacations, I looked down at the clover patch in front of me and there was my lucky leaf from Nashville.

We have talked almost nonstop and will be in on a small road trip today to Chattenooga to visit some of the Sun Dance folks down there and spend the night so I don’t see that trend changing any time soon.